Saturday, April 7, 2018

Why The Resume Is Dead

What makes a candidate stick out on a resume? The short answer is nothing, it’s a pdf. Resumes don’t reflect fit, personality, communication skills, and so much more.

In many cases candidates either game the system by overstating skills and experience, or clog the system up by sending resumes to job postings they are woefully unqualified for. It’s not uncommon for a job posting to receive more than a hundred resumes with less than 5% meeting the requirements. It’s become a colossal waste of time and detrimental to the ATS.

Since the resume process hasn’t changed in years, many or most HR Managers have become so comfortable in the process they don’t even question if there’s a better way, but with today’s technology, a better way is emerging. Social media, big data, digital interviews, and even artificial intelligence is making their way into the screening and hiring process.

A Growing Trend - Grace Swanson, vice president of human resources at fast growing precision parts manufacturer Accumold, says she’s not a fan of resumes. Many of the resumes she encounters are filled with irrelevant, and often false information. It’s just not a good vehicle. As for Nathan Hughes, with Detroit Labs, a 130 employee tech start up, his position on resumes is crystal clear – he doesn’t accept them.

A recent survey by Korn Ferry Futurestep confirms that resumes may not be as critical as they once were. Resumes came in dead last when HR managers were asked what was the most important part of the job search process. Networking was first, followed by interviewing and social media presence. To make matters worse for the resume, The Ladders, an online job board for six figure placement, found that recruiters and hiring managers spend on the average less than six seconds per resume. Can your career be summed up in six seconds? I hope not.

With resumes, “we’re judging people more on their ability to summarize their career than their ability to actually do the job,” says Kevin Parker, CEO of HireVue, a digital interviewing platform. The resume also works against those that are self-taught, a group that includes a sizable chunk of today’s software developers, says Vivek Ravisanker, CEO of HackerRank, who predicts that 2018 will be the end of the resume for developers.

It’s believed that Leonardo da Vinci wrote the first resume in 1482, and the process hasn’t changed much since. There has to be a better way.